Shakespeare’s Globe

Premieres Join Shakespeare for 2013 Lineup

As it closed out its 2012 season, Shakespeare’s Globe in London announced its 2013 season lineup, featuring three Shakespeares and three world premieres.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, and Macbeth, Shakespeare’s three plays that deal most directly with the supernatural, will sit at the heart of the season. Three new plays will receive world premières: The Lightning Child by Che Walker with music by Arthur Darvill, Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale, and Gabriel by Samuel Adamson, a celebration of the transporting power of the trumpet, featuring English trumpet soloist, Alison Balsom. Twice crowned Female Artist of the Year at the Classic BRIT Awards, Alison has cemented an international reputation as one of classical music's great ambassadors and is ranked among the most distinctive and innovative musicians on the international circuit today.

Building on the success of its award-winning touring program, the Globe will present a midscale United Kingdom tour of Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3, including a visit to the Globe in summer 2013. Small-scale tours of King Lear and The Taming of the Shrew will also play at the Globe during their UK and European travels.

Three ground-breaking, international companies that came to London for Globe to Globe will return for a limited number of performances as part of wider international tours. Shakespeare’s Globe welcomes back the Isango Ensemble from South Africa with its Venus and Adonis; from Georgia, the Marjanishvili Theatre returns with its imaginative As You Like It; and the internationally recognized Belarus Free Theatre brings back its production of King Lear. One final international element of the theater season will be Footsbarn, bringing Indian Tempest.

Public booking for the 2013 theatre season opens on Feb. 11. Those who join the Friends & Patrons of Shakespeare’s Globe gain access to priority booking beginning Jan. 8. Information about the benefits of being a Friend or Patron is available online at www.shakespearesglobe.com/support-us/individual-support/friends-patrons or contact the Friends & Patrons office on 020 7902 5970, or e-mail friends@shakespearesglobe.com.

Currently, the Shakespeare’s Globe all-male “original practices” productions of Richard III and Twelfth Night are running in repertoire at the Apollo Theatre until February.

In the just-ending 2012 season, the theater played to 95 percent of audience capacity with more than 400,000 tickets sold. Of those, 120,000 were for the Globe to Globe festival, which saw a staggering 80 percent of audiences attending a show at the Globe for the first time.